I have a holy frustration!
My church has just returned from a Missions trip to Mexico. I hear their stories of the sick being healed, ministering to children, praying for a man who was oppressed by a demon and I think, “I want this to be my lifestyle.”
I have just returned from a country where I witnessed extreme poverty, sickness, hopelessness. For five consecutive days I was able to preach, pray, impart, love, and hope with a group of women desperate for a touch from God. I saw women healed and stood together with many for a breakthrough. This morning my thought is, “I want this to be my lifestyle.”
I don’t believe God has called me to Mexico or to a foreign country. But I believe He has called me to the mission’s field that is my neighborhood, my workplace, my community. We don’t have to travel around the world to see poverty, sickness, a hunger for God.
So herein lies my Holy Frustration. I want to preach the gospel to the poor, I want to feed the hungry, I want to lay hands on the sick and see them recover. I don’t want to live a nice comfortable life. I want to live a life of miracles. God promised I could and all His promises are yes and amen in Jesus.
How do I make this a reality without falling prey to self-works, without looking inward and thinking I need to love more, I need to pray more, do more? How do I simply rest in Him, trust He wants to see His children healed more than I do? How do I live the miraculous amidst lesson plans, wedding plans, writing a book, being a wife, a mom, and a friend? How does this jigsaw puzzle that is my life come together to form the beautiful picture God has created?
Do you now understand my holy frustration?
“Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.”
2 Corinthians 1:20-22 MSG
http://bible.com/97/2co.1.20-22.msg